Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today said that the Congress Government is playing with the future of poor students by denying free education up to Ph.D to the SC students as well as timely delivery of scholarships to the underprivileged students as promised. It urged the government to shun its anti-dalit and anti-poor approach and immediately deliver on its promises made to the SC community. In this regard, a meeting of the SC Wing of SAD was held under the chairmanship of former Minister and President of SC wing (SAD), S. Gulzar Singh Ranike at the party headquarters. The SC wing criticized the Congress Government for not fulfilling its promises made to the SC community in the state.Lambasting on the new government for its flip-flop on the promise of free education up to Ph.D for SC students during the polls, S Ranike said that poor students who were dreaming of higher studies have been pushed into a dilemma as they don’t know if they will be able to study further. The government had not issued any notification in this regard so far. He further said that no arrangement had been made for timely distribution of scholarship to poor students as promised by the congress government. It could escalate the drop-out rate in the schools of the state, by forcing the poor kids to leave their study midway.
The SAD leader said that the Congress government had taken a complete u-turn on all its promises made to the SC community. He said, “From waiving off loans of laborers to providing 300 free units of power to the SC community, none of promise was implemented so far”. He said the present government has even started taking back the facilities provided to the SC community by the SAD-BJP government. It is making excuses to curtail the Atta-Dal scheme and pruning the list of Blue card holders to cut short the welfare scheme innovated by the previous government. Condemning the congress government for its claims and small outputs, the SAD leader said, “It promised large increase in the amount of Shagun scheme and old age pension scheme, but provided only a paltry hike on both welfare schemes.” Giving details of the promises made to the SC community by the Congress government, he said that employment to every household, five marla plots for SC community, 10 percent seat reservation in professional courses, Dr. BR Ambedkar Bhawan in every block were the promises that still waiting to be implemented by it.